With Bethel School buses now taking pictures of drivers who pass illegally when the red lights are flashing, drivers should be reminded when they can and cannot pass.

First, if you’re going the same direction as a school bus with its red lights flashing, you cannot pass, even if there are two lanes going in the same direction.

Read the chokepoints series

If you do, you will get a $394 ticket.

Where drivers are often confused is when they approach a school bus from the opposite direction as its flashing red lights are activated.

If it is a two-lane road, just one lane in each direction, that opposing traffic must stop.

But if there are three lanes, a lane in each direction and a dedicated turn lane in the middle, cars going the opposite direction of the bus do not have to stop.

That same rule applies to any road that has three or more marked lanes.

Cars coming from the opposite direction of the school bus also don’t need to stop if there is a median between the lanes or a physical barrier.